


like a comet pulled from orbit

by torigates



Category: Psych
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torigates/pseuds/torigates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shawn is good at half-truths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a comet pulled from orbit

  
_“Do you know what it’s like to have an internal voice that tells you what the right thing to do is all of the time, and you do it, and it works, and you’re good at what you do, and then one day it just shuts off and in that moment there is no voice, and you just have to listen to yourself, and in an instant, in a millisecond, you make a tiny, but crucial mistake and screw up so bad it affects your whole life?”_

_“No, I do not. But Gus here might.”_

Shawn is good at half-truths.

His voice sounds like Henry Spencer, and he has never been able to make it go away.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

All Shawn wanted in life was to be a cop. Then all he wanted was to be _anything_ besides a cop.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

At fifteen, Shawn takes the detective test and gets a perfect score. His dad looks at him for a long time before nodding his head one, sharp.

At the time Shawn thinks, _even perfect isn’t good enough for you, dad_ , but looking back he realises it for what it was.

Henry Spencer was scared. Scared of his genius kid who didn’t really know how to handle his intelligence, who was smarter than everyone else, but still drowning, somehow.

Shawn knows that now, hindsight being what it is.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

Gus asked him once what it was like to remember everything, how it felt. Shawn said, _tiring_ , and Gus looked at him like he was crazy, so Shawn smiled and said, _dude, awesome_ , thinking maybe he was crazy, just a bit.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

In 1995 Gus tells Shawn he’s going away for college. Shawn takes in the news, stating at Gus for a long time.

Gus looks scared, but not in the way that mummies or ghosts scare him but scared like he might actually lose Shawn. Shawn knows that was never going to happen. Never. So he forces a smile on his face and says, _Buddy, that’s awesome! We should totally celebrate!_ Gus looks relieved.

Shawn was never going to stop being Gus’s friend, but despite the copious amount of teen movies Shawn has seen, he knows what happened to friendships after high school. What scared Shawn more than anything was the chance that he might lose Gus.

When Abigail agreed to go on a date with him, all he can think about was how everything, _everything_ was about to change.

He chokes.

The next night he steals a car and gets arrested.

His dad says, _You want my attention, Shawn, you got it_ , but he wouldn’t look Shawn in the eyes. Shawn thinks, _No, dad, you still don’t see me at all._

The holding cell is cold and smells like piss. Shawn’s more scared than he wants to admit, but refuses to give Henry the satisfaction.

His dad said that ended his chances at being a cop, but Shawn knows it also cut off any thought of going to college for good.

He wouldn’t have, but the chance would have been nice.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

After their last exam, Gus finds him chain smoking on the steps of the school.

“You know that’s going to kill you, right?”

Shawn shrugs, squinting into the harsh Santa Barbara light.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Gus asks after Shawn smoked two more cigarettes.

“Yeah,” Shawn says.

Gus sits next to him until he finished the pack.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

Shawn wants to trash his dad’s house on his way out as a final _fuck you_ , but couldn’t.

He leaves the front door wide open.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

The look on his mom’s face when he knocks on her door three days later breaks Shawn’s heart.

“Oh, Goose,” she says. Shawn puts his head on her shoulder and cries.

She never said anything, but Shawn can hear her—hear _them_ —on the phone later that night, arguing.

He curls up on his side and thinks, _it was me. I ruined them._

Sometimes he still can’t shake that thought.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

Shawn spends the next five years not speaking to his father.

He works twenty-seven jobs and lives in four different countries.

He sends a postcard each time he moves or changes jobs, the underlying message being, _look, I’m not a cop._ He’s not sure if that means, _look at how I’m letting you down_ , or _look at how I’m doing okay_.

He keeps sending them, though, with messages like, _Argentina is awesome!_ or _working at a casino!_

He never signs them. His dad only has one estranged son, after all.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

Everything in Shawn’s entire being is about more.

Shawn can’t remember the first time he realised he didn’t want to be a cop. He wanted to be a cop so bad and for so long, until one day he didn’t (In 1987 he wanted to be a cop. In 1995 he didn’t. Where was the line? When did he change? 1990? 1993? Shawn can’t remember, and that scares him. Shawn remembers _everything_ ).

Shawn spent so much time wanting to be like his dad, it hurts him to realise he doesn’t anymore. He doesn’t want to be so consumed, so driven, so _angry_.

Shawn wants more.

More books, more girls, more jobs, more, more, more.

From 1995 to 2006 Shawn devotes everything in him to chasing that feeling, that desire for more. He does everything he can, goes everywhere, fucks everyone, drinks everything, and yet at times he still feels so empty he can’t stand it.

(Turns out, though, it was back home where he left it. Funny how life works out like that.)

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

Shawn goes back to Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving 1998, dirt poor, hoping to see Gus.

When he knocks on the Gusters’ door, Joy answers.

“Shawn!” she exclaims. “Gus isn’t here. He stayed at school to work on a project.”

Shawn stuffs his hands in his pockets and nods. Something on his face must speak to the desperation he feels, because she grabs her coat and says, “Come on, let me buy you lunch.”

Shawn sat across from her in the restaurant, fiddling with his sleeve, looking everywhere but at Joy.

“Shawn,” she said, reaching across the table and touching his forearm. “You look skinny.”

He smiled. “It’s this new diet I’m trying. It involves, what’s it called,” he snapped his fingers a few times. “Not eating.”

Joy laughed, but her eyes looked so sad. It had been awhile since Shawn saw someone look at him that way. “I’m buying,” she said.

Shawn was lonely, and hungry, and he missed Gus. It only made sense when he walked her home to lean in and give her a hug. She rubbed his back, and when Shawn pulled back, she leaned back into his space, pressing their mouths together.

She put her arms around his neck, Shawn’s hands hovering above her shoulders. She sighed into his mouth, her fingers tickling the back of his neck. He gripped her tight.

It was a mistake, Shawn knew that. It was hard to care when he was so alone.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

He took the MCATs, the LSATs, the GRE and any other lettered exam he came across, just to see.

The results came in and Shawn thought, _good enough._ The voice in his head asked, _since when has ‘good enough’ been good enough for you, kid?’_

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

He goes bungee jumping and the whooshing in his ears still isn’t as exciting as the first time Henry told him to close his eyes and asked, _How many hats?_

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

Shawn rings in the millennium with alcohol poisoning.

The doctors ask if there was anyone they could call, and Shawn gives them Gus’s number, even though it’s four in the morning and Gus is two states away.

He realises there is no one else.

Ten hours later, Gus shows up looking pissed.

Shawn greets him with a grin. “Buddy!”

“Don’t play, Shawn. What’re you doing?” He looks mad and scared and all Shawn wants to do was hold his hand and say, _I don’t know. Help me, I’m scared_ , but he can’t.

He thinks Gus maybe knows, because he stays for a week, even though he had work and Shawn had never known to skip work before.

He brings Shawn back to Santa Barbara, to his dad’s.

“What are you doing, Shawn? This isn’t what I taught you to do! This isn’t how I taught you to live your life.”

“I don’t know, dad,” Shaw says. “I think I’m doing a pretty good job.”

“One week,” Henry tells him. “You can stay for one week.”

Even though he feels better a few days later, Shawn spends a lot of time sitting on the couch watching tv and complaining. Mostly he does it to annoy his dad, though a small part of him just likes being home.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

Shawn talks a lot. He likes the sound of his own voice, though when it comes down to it, he hasn’t really _said_ a lot in his life.

If you asked him, Shawn could tell you the two most important things he’s ever said:

“Burton? I’m not going to call you that. What’s your last name?”

and

“Let’s face it dad—I stopped wanting to be like you a long time ago.”

Gus once said that he had a theory that Shawn was trying to say all the words in the English language in every combination possible. Shawn thinks he’s maybe just working towards, _I’m sorry, dad_ , or maybe _I forgive you, dad_.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

Shawn pretends to be dumb because it’s easier. No one expects things from you if they think you don’t understand what they’re talking about. Genius makes people uncomfortable, especially when they think it’s being wasted. If Shawn had a nickel for every time someone told him, _You could have anything you wanted_ , well, he’d have a lot of nickels.

The thing they don’t get—the thing his _dad_ doesn’t get—is that Shawn _has_ everything he wants.

(Pretty much.)

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

Henry moves to Miami in 2002 without telling Shawn.

Shawn’s not even living in Santa Barbara at the time. He calls to ask Gus to track down his old radio.

(“Why do you need your old radio?”

“Gus, don’t be a prickly pear, I just need it.”)

Gus calls him back three days later. “He’s not there.”

“What do you mean he’s not there? He’s retired; he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“He’s not there,” Gus says. “I don’t think he’s been there in a while. All the furniture is covered with sheets like in some creepy movie.”

He tracks down his dad’s new number from his mom.

“I’ve been gone six weeks, kid,” Henry tells him. “You’re getting sloppy.”

Even Shawn knew it would be cruel to tell him he wasn’t looking.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

Shawn will never admit:

—how much product he uses for his hair. Some things are just left better as a mystery (In 2009, Abigail moves deodorant, shampoo, and tampons in his bathroom.

“Is all this product _yours_?” she asks, a smile spreading over her face.

“No,” Shawn scoffs. “That belongs to my old girlfriends.”

“It says ‘Luscious Locks for Men’ on the bottle,” Abigail points out, a definite smirk on her face.

“It’s Gus’s?” he tries.

She shakes her head and tells him he’s cute.)—

—the real reason he doesn’t like pointy things (when he was seven Cynthia Jameson chased him around the playground with a tree branch for a week before a teacher finally caught her at it and made her stop.) —

—he still wants to be like his father. A little bit.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

In 2005 he takes on New York City.

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

Shawn calls his mom whenever he has a working phone and can afford it, which isn’t that often, if he’s being truthful, and it’s definitely not as often as he would like.

If Shawn were to think about it (but get one thing straight, Shawn definitely does _not_ think about it), it would make him sad that he’s not close with either of his parents.

He looks at Gus, and doesn’t think about how even though Gus’s parents drive him absolutely insane, it’s the good kind of insane, where they’re always calling him to make sure he’s eating enough, and not the bad kind of insane where your dad makes you practice how to escape from locked trunks.

He definitely doesn’t think about how he used to spend every weekend with his dad, doing Boy Scout stuff, or surveillance, or just working on his homework. He definitely doesn’t think about how close he used to be with his mom and how they could just talk about anything.

He misses feeling like a family (it’s usually at this point that Gus sends him a text message, _jerk chicken?_ or walks through the Psych office doors complaining about pharmaceuticals, and Shawn thinks, _yeah, everything is okay_ ).

 

 

 

+

 

 

 

Shawn becomes psychic in 2006, and spends the next three years solving crimes. Sometimes the voice in his head tells him, _you done good, kid_ , and yeah, Shawn thinks he has.

 

 

 

+


End file.
